Business Email with WorkBuddy: Writing It Right

By the end of this article you'll be able to have WorkBuddy draft, reply to and rewrite business email — and strike the right tone when chasing progress, apologizing, declining, or communicating externally.

1. Three Reasons Email Is Hard

Getting stuck on an email usually isn't a writing problem. It's three things left unresolved: who the recipient is, what you need them to do, and what must not be said. WorkBuddy's value is in surfacing those three points — or letting you state them in one sentence — before it writes, rather than generating a pile of pleasantries.

2. Drafting: Audience, Goal, Key Points

One instruction with three things in it is enough: Write to the client's procurement lead. The goal is to move delivery from Friday to next Tuesday and explain the compensation. Key points: current progress, why it slipped, the new date, and the remedy we're offering. From that it produces a subject line, salutation, body and closing action items. The more your key points read like facts, the more usable the draft.

3. Replying to a Long Thread: Summarize First, Then Respond

Paste the original email in or reference the attachment, and first have it summarize the sender's asks and underlying concerns in three to five points. Once you've confirmed you read it the same way, respond point by point. This prevents answers that miss the question, and makes it easy to pull out the items you'd rather handle yourself. In a long exchange, ask it to preserve the timeline so commitments don't contradict each other.

4. Tone and Context

The same message reads very differently internally versus externally, upward versus downward. You can specify directly: "internal, peer level, concise, no honorifics"; "to a client, formal, thank them first then raise the issue"; "chasing progress without sounding pushy". When adjusting tone, change one dimension at a time and have it mark the sentences it changed, so you can judge whether it went too far.

5. Bilingual and Cross-Cultural Communication

When you need an English version, don't have it translate the Chinese line by line. Have it rewrite directly in English from the same set of key points, then compare back for any loss of information. For external mail, also remind it about forms of address, date formats and the recipient's public holidays, and keep the wording of any commitment conservative.

6. Pre-Send Checklist

• Are the To and CC fields correct, and do the salutation and title match?
• Does the subject line state the matter — avoid things like "about something".
• Do action items say who does what, and by when?
• Do the numbers, dates and amounts match internal records?
• Has anything that shouldn't leave the company been removed — internal links, costs, unannounced plans?

7. An Instruction You Can Reuse

Using the email thread above, write a reply. The recipient is their project manager; the goal is to confirm the acceptance date and ask them to send two documents. Professional but not stiff, under 200 words, ending with three action items. When it's done, ask for three alternative subject lines and pick one. For more office scenarios, see Tencent WorkBuddy.